Part 1 .A Screensaver? The Best Enterprise Computer Security and OPSEC Program

The best enterprise security program I ever implemented was a free screen saver by Microsoft.  I implemented it network wide in a day, and it has had huge positive impacts for our organization.

By boss has a quote: "By the time the CEO is absolutely sick of repeating his message, the workers on the factory floor are just starting to hear what he is trying to say."

From my (Director of I.T.) standpoint, that is even saying it too nicely.  In reality, nobody wants to hear what IT or the Help Desk has to say even though listening to us will do more to make the users' experience better than anything else.

In fact, most emails from I.T. go straight to the bit bucket (trash can.)  This in part is because we are seen as the "Network Nazis" who are constantly trying to prevent the users from completing their work.

We spend a lot of time trying to make things easier on the users by making things easier and less confusing.  The problem is that the users come up with crazy ways to do everything you can imagine based upon what they think is obvious and intuitive. 

My basic problem is that I needed to get certain messages across to the users in a way that would actually get through.  Emails were not working, nasty emails were REALLY not working. 

How do you change what is intuitive to the user?

I got the idea while my National Guard unit was mobilized in Iraq.  One of the bases had a screen saver of the "loose lips sink ships" variety.  The admins had a sense of humor, so it had a lot of LOTR and other geek references.  One example was a picture of the Eye of Sauron  with the tagline "the all-seeing eye of the network"

I realized that the idea of using a screen saver as a subliminal training aid made a lot of sense, but that the problem was in the core of the message.  The "don't tell secrets" was not specific enough.  It never told us WHAT not to tell.

Skipping ahead in the story, I am on my third version of the screen saver.  The technology has not changed, but the message and the delivery has changed a lot.

How to implement on windows:

1. Set up a network share to put your pictures in
2. Enable the server side setting "always available offline." This makes sure that the screensaver will keep going when a laptop is off the network
3. Create your slides in powerpoint and export them as .jpg  to the network share
4. Change your screensaver to the windows 7/8 "Photos Screensaver"
5. Edit the screensaver settings to point at your central photo share:

    6. Export the registry folder for. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Photo Viewer\Slideshow\Screensaver.  This is important because the screen saver location is encrypted.
    7.  Use group Policy to push these settings.  I have also used a batch file logon script when I was in a hurry.

Now all of your users who use the  photos screen saver will get your slides.  You can test variations of the slides until you are happy with them.

    8.  Force the new screen saver on your users using the standard group policy interface.

Next, the hard part:  crafting the message!